In one hour with a founder who built a $75m service business and sold it at the top of the market, you'll see exactly where value is stuck in yours, and leave with your real number and the plan to unlock it.
Launch pricing · run personally by a principal · limited sessions each month · confidential
Sound familiar? Every one of these has a price at the negotiating table. The session puts a number on yours, while there's still time to fix it.
Your name wins the work and your relationships keep it. Buyers discount hard for revenue that walks out the door with you.
Projects and hours, re-sold from zero. You see hustle; a buyer sees churn, and prices it accordingly.
Anchor accounts built the firm. You know the risk; you don't know what it is costing you at exit.
Which is exactly when the work should start. The owners who get the premium didn't start preparing in the year they sold.
Take a service business doing £2m of EBITDA. Here is what two turns of multiple, the difference between average preparation and a business buyers compete for, is actually worth.
A £4m swing on the same business, the same year. The gap is made of things you can influence: contracted revenue, client concentration, whether the work runs through you, the quality of your numbers. Most owners find out what theirs was in a buyer’s diligence, when it’s too late. The session finds it now. That map is what $1,000 buys.
Most advisers have only ever advised. We built Creed Media, a service business, from an idea to 150 people, four offices and $75m in sales, then sold a stake at a valuation service firms are told is out of reach. And we did it while removing ourselves from operations, the one thing a service business is never supposed to survive. That owner-independence is exactly what buyers pay a premium for, and exactly what this session measures in your firm. We've sat on your side of the table and closed the deal; the session is that same operator's eye, turned on yours.
Proof that a service business can beat the services multiple. The playbook this session runs on your firm is the one we ran on our own, step by step, with the press coverage so you can check us on it.
We bounced between hotel lobbies, building a way for record labels to reach Gen Z.
The idea was working. We got a room and brought in our first people.
More hires, including friends and family.
Hiring even more, past 50 people in under two years.
Outgrowing offices faster than we could move in.
150 people, four offices, $75m in sales. Creed still runs today, without its founders in the seat.
Opening the New York office.
Creed runs without us in the seat, exactly as it was built to.
Service firms trade at low multiples for predictable reasons. Every one, we engineered out, and each move has an equivalent whether you run an agency, a consultancy, an MSP or a practice.
This is how a banker would present it: each turn of multiple bought by a structural change, not a negotiation trick. Attribution illustrative; the 12× against a 3–6× peer set is real. The table below walks the same bridge, row by row.
Picked one niche and won it +1.5×
A generalist: any client, any industry, any brief
One category, owned completelyMusic marketing on TikTok, nothing else, until the majors had no one else to call
Recurring blue-chip revenue +1.5×
One-off projects; every month starts at zero
Repeat revenue from the same clientsWarner, Sony and Universal, year after year
Software-led margins +1.5×
People do the work; growth means hiring
Software does the heavy liftingInternal AI ran campaigns end to end; revenue outgrew headcount
Runs without the founders +1.5×
Everything runs through the owner
Management owned the P&LFounders out of day-to-day before the exit
Category brand, inbound demand +1.0×
Outbound pitching, competing on price
Inbound, by reputationForbes 30 Under 30; quoted in Rolling Stone and Billboard
Countercyclical client base +0.5×
First budget cut when the economy turns
Grew through the 2020 crashMusic spend on TikTok rose while brand budgets froze
Strategic cap table +0.5×
No outside investors to vouch for the price
Smart money already inStrategic investors and advisors on the cap table pre-exit
At exit = 12×
3–6× EBITDA, if a buyer shows up
12× EBITDAThe valuation Creed achieved at exit
A business buyers competed for, because it was built to be bought. The session finds which of these levers are open in your business, and what each is worth.
Read the coverage
Not a template and not a sales call. A senior read on your business against what buyers actually pay for, and the shortest path to a higher number.
For established service businesses with real revenue and profit, whether you plan to sell next year or in three. A 60-minute working session, not a report you never read. We analyse where your value is trapped, you bring what has kept the firm stuck, and together we build the plan to release it.
$1,000 to map the £4m swing above in your own business. It is the same first step we run at the start of every mandate.
Run personally by a principal, not a team — sessions each month are limited.
Most owners start with the session. What happens after it is your call, never a pitch.
A straight conversation with our M&A desk about your business, your timing, and whether we are the right team to run your exit.
Book the free introFind the untapped value before you sell: your real number, the gaps costing you multiple, and the prioritised plan to unlock them.
Book your sessionFor owners who want the plan executed with us: close the gaps together, then run the sale to our network of 5,000+ verified acquirers.
Real examples of what owners bring into the room.
Three steps between you and the plan.
Choose a slot below. Payment is taken when you book, and your hour is locked in with a principal.
A short intake covers your numbers and what has kept the business stuck, so the hour starts at full speed.
We work through your business together. You leave with your number, the ranked gaps, and the plan.
Because they are different conversations. A 15-minute intro with our M&A desk, to talk about selling, is free and always will be. This is a 60-minute working session with a different job: to find the untapped value in your business and the plan to release it, so you don’t sell for less than it’s worth. Worth it even if you think you’re ready.
A Leprince Group principal, using the same method we run on live mandates. Our founder built Creed Media, a service business, from an idea to 150 people and $75m in sales before selling a stake, so the advice comes from someone who has sat on your side of the table.
No. The session stands on its own. Many owners use it to plan two or three years out. If it makes sense to go further into a Value Creation engagement or a sale, that is your call.
Service businesses of every kind: agencies, consultancies, IT and managed services, recruitment, engineering, logistics, professional practices. If you are pre-revenue or very early, the session will be less useful than a straight conversation.
60 minutes. $1,000 at launch pricing, not the $3,500 it's built to be. Leave with your number and the plan, or pay nothing.